You Wait For One ............

Hello blog lovers.

It's been a while, hasn't it!  It is holiday season, lots of days off, lots of eating, drinking and all!  But now I am back to it!  I have a dress I need to be looking for, Mother of the Bride!  The wedding is in October, so I have a few weeks left to tone, lose some weight and get back on track!

I got back from my holiday on Tuesday afternoon, but I didn't go to club run, RefMichael had taken out group 1, I had lots of washing to do! But on Wednesday morning I went out for a solo run, well, when I say solo run I had little doodles with me, my daughters dog.  He likes to come out for a little 2 to 2.5 mile run before he starts wanting a carry home! But he also likes to sniff every single tree, bush, blade of blimmin grass that any dog....nay, any animal has been near it.  And also when he sees some other little fur babies out with their human mums and dads, then he likes to sit and wait for them to get near to him before he moves!  My run on Wednesday morning wasn't particularly fast, I could feel the tightness in my chest, the soreness in my calves!  I had been doing a lot off hill walking on my holidays, Cornwall and Devon are very hilly places! I was quite thankful that little doodles was needing to sniff every blade of  grass but it felt so good that I had at least made a start on my new healthy lifestyle choices (again!)  Blowing away the cobwebs, stretching the limbs again and getting into the right mindset to be able to keep it going, to keep it up!  I need to, I don't want to be looking like Les Dawson as 'Ada' in the wedding photographs!

Me, if I don't watch it!

Anyway here's my geeky stats for mine and doodles run.



  I ran with Tracy and LittleJ this morning, it was good to see LittleJ back to running, she has been out of action for about a month, I chose the nice round loop, going the easier way  up to the top of the woods.  It was a good route for LittleJ, because if she felt she couldn't do any more at least we could all get to the top of the hill first and then she could walk back on the roads, but it really wasn't necessary, because she kept with us for the whole of the 3 miles, a good walk run but it felt so good being in the woods, running with my pals!  We all kept on chatting after our run so we ended up going for a coffee!  A Costa Coffee run on a Thursday morning, we like to bend the rules!

Here's our geeky stats!


So the last one for this evening is about this evenings Core and Speed session.  This week it was lead by RefMichael, his first time leading these Thursday evenings.  He and Carole have come a long way since Feb 2016! Anyway, he did brilliantly, in fact his first speed session was tough one!  But before that we did the usual 2 laps of the green and the drills, then it was into his first tough speed session. It was the caterpillar/train style exercise, but with a slight difference.  Instead of the person at the back having to run all the way to the front of the train/caterpillar, at Michaels whistle the person at the front had to run all the way around the cricket field to get to the back!  My goodness it was tough.  I thought maybe the slower group 1's should be at the front, setting the pace so that when the first one took off on a sprint to get to the back it should be do-able.  Well I was at the front, I was first to do the sprint all the way around the cricket green, (the bit that we are not allowed to walk on!) and oh boy was it tough!  Michael had blown the whistle at least 2 or three more times by the time I eventually got to the back of the line  It was tough, real tough, but i really wanted to get to the end of the line!

We did it again, only but the way that we have always done it before, running from the back to the front on the whistle!  It was easier that way, but still great fun!

After that we took a drink and then did the core sessions, 9 different kinds of core exercise, I know it was 9 because there were nine of us and RefMichael asked us all to choose one each that we could do!  Planks, lunges, bicycles, sit ups and some others which I just can't think of right now!  All working on our core and strength!  With our favourite par luffs it was all done for another week! And it may be all the we have left on the rec, because of the fading light!

A great session though, and that's three lots of exercises done since I got back from my holidays!

Not a bad start!

Club Run - After The Wilderness!

Hello blog lovers!

Let me tell you, if you don't know already, I had a fabulous weekend of great people, eating, drinking, and dancing along to some brill music, for 3 nights!  I am still feeling totally stuffed still! For goodness sake don't ask me to explain any more than that! I was still pretty tired too, it's not very comfortable at my age, sleeping on camp beds!  I need my huge deep filled, sprung mattress!

So my route today was going to be the easier route, but still with going through the woods for a little bit.  The light is fading fast at night now, and I don't like it!  I love going through the woods!  Anyway, after all us leaders gave out our routes and pacing (Trish by the way is having her debut lead this evening, well done Trish, just blimmin well done!) we walked over to our post to have a count up.  There were 13 of us in group 1 this evening, a nice bakers dozen!  We were last out of the rec today, and we followed a group up the road and I am sure they went into the woods too, but by the time we got there there was no sign!  Must have been the speedsters!  The cyclists were there again, with the lights lighting on, so it's deffo going to be dark in the woods soon, I think the cyclists will be pleased by then because we don't go in the woods when it's dark but they still do!

We went in through poo ally and just waited for everyone to be in the woods before we set off on the left path, running right pass the cyclists, who were obviously having a break or planning their route through the woods, taking in all the little jumps and hills that I know trail riders love!  We, however, are just out for a nice easy, flattish route for about 3 miles!  At least I hoped it would work out to 3 miles, because of the weekend I hadn't really planned a route, I was just kind of guessing that it would be around about 3 miles, I only just thought of the route a couple of hours before hand!

Running along there I was struggling myself to see all of the roots, I called "roots!" when ever I saw them so that they all pick their feet up over the roots.  Just maybe 1 or two more runs through here is all that is left now!  I feel quite disappointed really, surely autumn is ages away, why is is getting so dark!?  I only took them to as far as the footbridge and then we went up and over the bridge and then ran to the next one and ran up and over that one.  We can't run any further than Little Thrift as the bridge at the end of the path opposite to where we came out of the woods is no longer there!  Apparently the railways will have it back by November this year!  Hmmm, we'll see!

I had told the group that it was a flattish run, I had forgotten about the little undulation up to Petts Wood Memorial Hall!  Ahhh, it's fine, we are tough, we can do this.  So we started running all the way up to the hall, with a smile of course, although I was sure that Tracy was throwing a few daggers at my back!  When I turned to look back at them, all running up "What happened to the flattish route?" Still it's all character building, isn't it!

Then it was just the usual flat part of the route, around Crestview and back to the main road.  We crossed over there but my group was in two parts, so I sent the front runners around the little triangle until the others caught up.  On our winter route, or I should say darker days route, we usually run all the way to Shepperton road and then run down it to the end.  But because we did the little extra in the woods we were not going to go that way.  I sent the front runners to run along to Shepperton, and they could either wait there or run back, do some loop backs. I was glad that I had stopped at Shepperton because J.J. and Auriol said that they would have gone running down that way!

Once we were all together we continued all together to the main road and then we split into the two groups again,  J.J. and Auriol will run with Tracy, the fast ones ran with me until we got to Crossways, then they the could go at a faster pace to rec.

A great run, with some great people!  Love my running club!

Thursdays Double Up

Hello blog lovers.

Today I managed to do double exercise again.  A nice run in the woods with Tracy and I did the core and speed session.  So lets talk about the first run, that was this morning.  It's holiday time and there are less of us on a Thursday morning.  In my group it is only me and Tracy.  I decided on a shorter route through the woods as I need to be back in time, so it was up the right side of the woods to the road, all the way along to the top of the woods, and along the top to Botany Bay Lane and down again.  Anyway I'm telling you the plot!

We ran all the up, Tracy almost made it up to the top of it, and then we continued to run all the way along the side of the road.  When you are in the woods you it does look all the same, and if you are not sure of the woods it could look all the same.  Tracy couldn't get where were were, she popped her head out of the woods just by the road, and I explained exactly where we are.  It soon all be clear to here where we were.  We Got to Botany Bay Lane and then ran down it, there was no going around to Goss hill today, we had the luxury of running along the whole length of it, passing by the lovely house that is there.  It seems as if there is someone living there now!

Because of the rainfall yesterday, and there was a lot of it,  I thought maybe we should go up over the bridges and out to Little Thrift.  There were a few puddles the way we had already been, so I just knew that at the bottom of the woods there will be a few quiet sticky puddles.

So up and over we went, two bridges and then out on to the road to finish our run to the rec.  A lovey run, a nice little gentle run.

So geeky stats for that one is just below.

Thursday Evening Core and Speed Training.

Well, DiscoRich and IllustriousLeader were not here, and really, this time Thursday Evenings are usually lead by us minions leading each other.  So this week we had a fabulous leader, a beautiful, fair and thoughtful leader.  Ok, so I lied, it was me!  I was the first of the minions to lead the more informal groups, but that doesn't mean that I was going to be too easy, but I was also going to keep it fun.

The first thing to do of course is the warm up laps and the drills.  Then it was on to the fun bits. a bit of fun speedy type session.  I call it magpie, I am sure others will have a name for it.  The idea is to have groups, I think I should have gone with 3 groups, but I did two groups as it was  nice even number which included me playing along too.  I put a pile of cones in the middle of two batons about 20 or 30 paces apart of the cones.  each team member took it in turns to run to the middle of the pile take  cone and then come back to their team mates.  As soon as each team had two cones each then the opposition could 'steal' two cones from them, but then not to keep them but to put them back into the middle of the pile.  It's a game of speed and tactics!  Great fun.

Then we had our core session. Star jumps/cycling/lunges/push ups/ squats and then 30 second plank! In that order too!  It was a case of up, down, up down, with about 10 seconds between each discipline!

Of course it wouldn't be the same if we didn't have our par luffs to finish off!  I had fun, and I think everyone else had fun, the midges seem to enjoy us too, where's the antihistamine!?

Running In The Wilderness!

Hello Blog Lovers!

So this weekend was a bit different!  I am writing a blog but my blog is about the whole weekend of friends, fun, music, eating, and maybe the odd glass of beer!  From Friday early evening through to Monday morning I was one of those trendy people who go to festivals, I was with with Kirsty!  As you can imagine, I was pretty excited and apprehensive all at the same time!  I had been to a festival last year with Kirsty, so I knew exactly what to expect!  Those campbeds are not the most comfortable to sleep on, but according to hardened campers, it's 'A little bit of heaven' compared to sleeping on a mat on the floor!  So I guess I shouldn't moan so much,  I had company with me too, the ants were very curious and got up close and personal! And of course Kirsty was tons better company and some other great young people and their carers, nurses and doctors too.

Festival Spirit are the organisation that make it possible for young people to be able to experience a festival even though they have some huge life challenges!  They are a  "Charity providing the full festival experience to young people who would not normally be able to enjoy one due to life-limiting illness or disability"  they are an amazing group of people who make it possible for them to feel as safe and secure at a festival, a non profit organisation. Festivals are an experience that I think everyone should do at least once in their life, says she who swore she wouldn't ever going camping!  This was the second time I had been to a festival, camping with Festival Spirit, I went last year as well. An amazing bunch of people, Steve, Debs, Paul, Ross, Catrin, I am sure I am sure there were some others whose names escape me.  They made us feel so welcome and relaxed.  Everything was done, the tent put up, the floor down, the heating on, the little rooms all set out for the guests! Hospital beds for the guests, camp beds for the carers and nurses.  Of course this weekend wouldn't have been possible for Kirsty and me to go to if it wasn't for the wonderful people at St Christopher's young Adults.  They had done all the fund raising to be able to bring along 5 great people with their carers to be able to enjoy festivals!  It's all done on charity, fund raising, people like you and I giving money specifically to St. Christopher's Young Adults! (a little plug if you are not sure who you want to raise money for in your next race!)  I can't even imagine what the cost is to get them to a festival, last year we had a Jumbulance, and this year we had two minibuses, and a van, as well as to use the wonderful people of Festival Spirit to supply the marque,  the beds, the tickets, the electricity, the food, the cooking, the clearing up well, just about everything to make sure that we all had a great time!  I'm telling you, I can not 'big' St Christopher's and Festival Spirit up enough!

Anyway, I am guessing you are wondering why I am writing all this?  "Did she run?" "Is she just trying to make us all jel?" Well yes I did run, and I ran only because I was 'well jel' of all those wonderful pictures I had seen of my running buddies on the Facebook page which were of them all in their PWR shirts in exotic places, #pwrruntheworld is the hash tag they use!  But I was wondering how many of them had ran at a festival!

I wanted to keep it at parkrun time but as you can see, I was a little early! I can tell you, even though I had a camp bed I am not a very comfortable camper!  I like my bed, I like comfort! I like all the mod cons that come with 5 start hotels! So I didn't sleep very well and I was up at a sparrows fart to get ready.  After an on/off rainy evening to wake up to lovely sunshine was good, and I had a feeling that I did the right thing in only packing run pants and my PWR top!  Well, it is #pwrruntheworld! I have to show off my cub colours.  Although the sun was shining and we had blue skies the morning air gave me a little chill while I waited for the satellites to find me.  And then I was off, I had no idea how how big the Wilderness Festival grounds were but I was determined to run around the whole off it, and it was was 4 miles then so be it, and if it was only 1 mile then I would run three loops, as in a park run.

I set off for the site.  I hope you had noticed that I have already laid out one very good reason for it not being the most speediest of runs by the way!  I was very tired and very achy! The site is also a very uneven and bumpy ground. with cheeky little undulations, dips and rises! It's not my usual nice, flat park run! And of course I took a couple of pictures of the two main stages, this is the Atrium, Will Young was supposed to have turned up, but he was a no show!

The Atrium

Oh well, there were plenty of other great acts that were there! This was not far from where I started but already I was feeling tired!  But still, when do I ever not feel tired on a Saturday morning!  There was plenty to see, I was using this run as a little recce to tell Kirsty where everything will be.  I found the Chocolate Brownie stall!  The sun was shining brightly and as I ran around the site I was getting very warm.  I was also getting some "Hey, well done" from some of the other festival goes as they were on the forage for food and caffeine!

 I had ran around the whole site and got to the main stage, which was spitting distance to our camp site by the way,  and I was feeling quite pleased with myself.  I checked out my Garmin and realised I actually only had done 1.5 miles! Well, that answers the question of how many loops I shall be doing!  To be truthful I was feeling blimmin knackered, and again, I point you to point number 2 for me feeling pretty tired that morning, the fact the main stage was just 'over the road', it was pretty noisy! But of course, I couldn't not run a parkrun distance, could I, so I did a second loop, finding another little bit to look on site, and spying some other stalls I had not see on the first loop.  I investigated it and then carried on with my loop but I got slightly confused and missed a bit that I had done before and found a few more stalls that could be worth a visit when they opened!

I ended my run by going out the gate near by the Main Stage, this is me at the main stage by the way, it was huge!

Main stage, redder face,
but a better picture of this stage!

 The sound system on there was incredible! The Back Stage area was there too, which you could go in and party after the main events!  Yup, it truly was a noisy sleep, probably not great training for a 1k run let alone a 3k run.  Never mind, I am sure the beer could possibly help in that situation! Oh, yes, no.3 reason for feeling tired, but still, I guess 3 beers were not too much for the previous night!

So that was my Saturday run done, Petts Wood Runners, Run The World!  Not exotic, no sea and sand, although there was naked swimming in the lake (and no I did not do that!) but there was a music festival happening for the entire weekend, from the Friday till Monday morning!  I was knackared!

The girls and boys from St Christopher's and the carers were kept busy as they made sure that all the guys and girls with these life limiting conditions had a brilliant time, while the boys and girls from Festival Spirit kept us well nourished with cereals, fresh fruit salad and bacon and sausage rolls for breakfast, plus tea and cakes in the afternoon! Our evening meal was found out there, from the stalls on site.

Oh by the way, this was our home for a few days, and some pictures I took off the Spirit of Festival Facebook page of the way it all gets laid out.

I a sure we had a little bit more room this time, because
Kath, a St Christopher's nurse made a little table at the back
with a plastic box and a wood slatted top!

Kirsty with her scatchcards!

Oh, by the way, the acts that I managed to get to see were brilliant, Toots and the Maytals, and Grace Jones, plust Leanne Carroll singing Nina Simone songs!  Just brilliant.  Also a quick blast of a bluesy group on the Friday night was good, but we couldn't stay to see the end of that session.


Here this is a few of the pictures I took of the festival and a couple of pictures I 'nicked' with permission from Festival Spirit. I have a couple of shots of some of the team among my pictures, but if you click on either of the blue links at the top of this blog, (one is the web page the other is the FaceBook page) I am sure you can meet the rest of the team, Paul Steve, Debbie and the rest, as well as hundreds of other photos of the guests enjoying what you and I could do, at anytime if we wanted!  Fabulous photos.

Warrior Danny

Caris and the gang

Junior

Me and Kirsty

I took this because it just
looked amazing!

Ravi, Jan and Nick

Ravi

Some of the St Christopher's crew

Watching Toots

Watching toots!

Oh and this is my geeky stats for the Saturday run!

Double Day! Yay!

Hello blog lovers.

Yes, I have managed a double day Thursday!  This morning it was only me and Tracy, she really does not like to have all my attention on her.  I don't know why!  But there you have, just me and Tracy in the slower group, Helen and David in the middle group and Nickie, Ralf, Gary and and another chap in the faster group!  You can tell it's holiday season, can't you?!

It had been raining all day yesterday and I really didn't want to go through the woods, it will have some very muddy puddles which will slow us down, I really wanted, nay, needed a good run so my choice of route this morning was the cinder path, it's all nice and flat, it's all tarmac and it does have the bit through the woods, best of both worlds.

We all set out together, fast group going out through Towncourt Crescent entrance, middle group and me and Tracy out of the other entrance, but we turned  right to run along to Tudor way, so that we can run through the woods on the cinder path.  Tracy was behind me, I was really trying to get her to pick up her pace a bit.  I kept stopping, looking back and then running again.  No let off.  I know that she can run parkrun without stopping, she has done it several times, this route that we were doing is the same distance.  Psychologically it feels different, but she can do it.  I wish I could do it really, at the pace that I run, but I always walk some of it!  If NaggyNeibour was next to me she would nag me until I started running again!  I am just passing on that 'love' to Tracy.

We got to the very end of the path, with me making sure she was behind me all the time, turning to check, even running back sometimes to make sure, and we took a bit of a rest. Then it was all the way back again, a straight out and back, following the exact and I mean the EXACT route that we took to get there! In fact its the EXACT route that  take all the time when I lead group 1 along this path! I kept the same sort of pace going back, looking back to make sure Tracy was behind me, I mean, it's not as if she can go any other way, we came this way, just a few minutes back right!

Anyway, I ran and I came out of the pathway and waited on Shepperton road for her to emerge around the corner along the path.  I waited, I waited before and she came in sight, but this time I waited, and waited some more.  surely I hadn't ran that fast in front!  I waited.  I thought may I should go and see, and then I realised something.  "I bet she turned right instead of bared left!"  Why she would have done that  I don't know, because Tracy has been up this way so many times before. But When I looked up Shepperton to the main road Tracy came around the corner!  She had indeed ran on the wrong path!  Of course I can say that it was Tracy getting lost, but, as the leader, I should have been there at the particular (although we have never ran along that particular path before) point to wait for her again. So, a bad mark against me!  Tracy thought it was funny, but she said she kept running all the way to Crofton road, which is good!

We continued our running all the way to rec, I was in front, and as I crossed over Petts Wood Road I made a point of letting her know that we should be running up Crossways!

So, geeky stats for our morning run.

Thursday Evening Session

So its the last session of the year for our Thursday evening sessions, well, the ones that DiscoRich and IllustriousLeader will be taking the lead.  From next week it's going to be all of the rest of us doing the leading until it becomes too dark, then its back to track!

DiscoRich had some fun and games for us to do.  So the warm up laps done, the drills done and then it was on to our first running section.  A fast lap with a baton to hand to our team mates.  DiscoRich had us all in teams, there were five teams of three, and not three teams of five! Don't ask, it started to get quite confusing!  The teams were all mixed up because there was a team cup involved!  each team had group 1 or twos, going up to the faster runners, so it makes for a nice even race.  I had a couple of quite fast runners in my group, so it could be quite interesting.

So the first members of each team ran around.  Not to the half way point but the whole way round, as fast as we dared!  Stephen was our fist member, he is really speedy, well he is married to ZippySherry and he had his two speedy daughters at the session too!  Then it was another young lady, and I have forgotten her name, she was pretty fast, so we had quite a good gap between us and the rest of the teams, but of course, the two mini zippys were in the field racing again each other, and also gaining on my team mate!  So when I started my lap the gap was a bit closer!  I knew I had to try and get some distance between me and the others, and I tried I really did.  but I soon heard the faster runners coming along.  Simon was steaming up behind me, and then he passed me!  DiscoRich then came up behind me.  He said he was going to run in with me, but seeing Simon pulling away, the competitiveness got hold of me and he chased him down.

It was close, but my team didn't win!  Then we had the core training bit.  Some planking, lunges, you know the usual stuff! Then it was the fun bit, an egg and spoon race!  We stayed in our teams that we were in for the fast paced lap.  There were all sorts of tactics to getting up the course with the egg still on the spoon!  This is where Tracy came into her own!  We all thought Auriol was a dab hand at the old egg and spoon race, but Tracy, well!  She flew up that course and back down again!  Twice! And that one her team the egg and spoon race!  There was this cup that DiscoRich had bought along for the winning team of todays racing.  And as Tracy did so well at the 'relay' eggy sort of race well, she got the cup!

After that we had our par luffs, still in the same teams and we did the relays for about 6-7 minutes! before having our cool down stretches!

A great fun end to 2017 'official' core sessions.  And to top it all, both me and Tracy actually managed to get on our bikes to get there, an extra bit of  exercises!

Geekys stats

Club Run - Where's the Sunlight Going!

Hello blog lovers.

Have you noticed how quickly the sun is going down in the evenings now.  When I want to take my group 1's through the woods I have to think about quick escape routes to be able to get out of the woods and run on pavements for the last bits.  It doesn't seem that long that we have been running in the woods.  A couple of weeks it has been far too wet in there, I just so love running through the woods and I miss it when I can't do it!

Today I had planned to start off in the woods, then run through the housing estate at the top and then back into Scadbury Park.  I thought we would just have enough light to do that, and maybe even finish up the last bit in Petts Wood, the part that runs parallel to Orpington road.

NaggyNeighbour was driving this evening and we picked up Tracy and Ade on our way to the rec.  Ade was going to join in group 2 this evening, as it's move-up week.  Naggy was going to try group 5, as she wanted to take it easy!! I know, group 5, easy, it don't compute!  I wasn't sure I had the right fuel inside of me today, especially as I had planned these blimmin hills!  I wanted to give our group a little challenge, just going around the woods, although it is just such peace and tranquillity in there, we still need to push ourselves just a bit to get fitter.

I took the middle path to get to the path that leads out of the woods and into the estate.  It's a gradual rise to the top of the woods, but I had  great sweepers in place, J.J. and Auriol, who will make sure that no-one gets left behind.  We had to wait at the sign in the woods for our backers.  We took a little walk so that we could get past the muddiest bit of the woods so far, it's where all the horses churn it up a bit when they are ridden through the woods (that is a word isn't it, ridden?)  My English and grammar ain't up to much, I should have paid more attention in school!  Anyways, once we were passed the muddy bits we had to take the right hand path that lead out to the lovely houses, they are truly love houses!  Of course, we were at the bottom of the road, almost, we had to run down a very small hill from the woods and then it was a nice steady plod all the way up to the main road!

I was running up here on 'empty', I literally had nothing left.  It's my own fault, I should have eaten properly, two weetabix and two slices of toast all day before a run in the evening is not good fuel for a 1 k run let alone 5 k!  I passed on my new found findings to my group stating "the things i do for my group so that you dont have to!" I said first "You are what you eat, and if all you are going to eat is weetabix and toast all day, then you are going to be a soggy sorry mess on a club run"  I don't think anyone actually believed I did this 'experiment' just for us in group 1, but it's still a lesson to learn.  A good breakfast and a decent lunch, possibly a snack late afternoon will get you around an evening 5k!

The light was was still good so I took them through Scadbury Park, I am sure it will only be a matter of weeks before that will be the end of woods running in the evening!  I will be planning pavement runs again. We ran all the way through the Scadbury and then  crossed over the road once out of the park.  It was still just about light enough to finish off woods running with the last bit running in the woods next to Orpington road.  We came out of the woods by the bridge, as it was quite dim in the woods, I wanted to just run along the road passing Birchwood and then down the next road which comes out opposite the entrance to the park.  I sent the faster runners on and I was there in middle.  It was then that we had a faller!  She came down with quite thump!  It's always most horrible when we have falls, especially on the tarmac and pavements!  We sat with her for a while until she was ready to sit up. We were at the top of the road, we could see the rec from this road, she said that she would walk the rest of the way.  With her was Auriol and Selena and Tracy.  They said they would see her back to the rec.  In the end Selena drove her home and made sure some one was with her.  I don't like people falling, but if it happens we have the bestest club that will rally around and make sure everyone is just fine.

So we ran for 3.25 miles, most pleasant, well apart from the fall.  I love my club! I am glad SmartyPants put my name down for the 10k back in 2010!

Geeky stats